Hiya! Call me Adrian. I’m a very shy, awkward, queer teen living along the West Coast of the USA. I prefer xe/xem/xir pronouns, or they/them/their. I’m ftm trans*masculine. I suppose I’ll tell you my life story? It’s very sad, and if it’s not sad it’s uneventful. Don’t get me wrong, I actually have a waaaay better life then most.

I was born on the 27th of November, 2004, in a cozy, small-ish town smack-dab in the middle of the USA. I was born a very quiet, contained, sweet and rosy-cheeked little girl, who lived a fairly good life. At the time, I lived with my stay-at-home mom and my dad who went to college to study literature. In 2007, my little brother was born. As a baby, he was chubby, constantly crying and running and jumping and shouting. We were like polar opposites when it came to that.

I have lots of memories from that little white house in Kansas, but when I was about five or six, my dad got a job so we hauled all our stuff into a U-Haul, packed into the car and made our way alllll the waaaay to California. We lived in a small apartment complex there for awhile, but we moved after a drastic and sudden change in my life. My parents were getting a divorce. I don’t remember much, but I knew that my dad had met someone else and had been dating her without telling my mom. It was a messier divorce because of this, and soon they split up and my mom took me and my brother to our aunts house. Still in California, it was a little two-story red-brick apartment. The apartment houses were all squished together in big red strips, with tiny little square green yards. We lived with my aunt, her husband, and their two little pugs for awhile. It was fun, but the house became cramped after awhile, and that’s when my mom made the decision to drive us to Oklahoma. I’m still grateful for my aunt to this day. Without her, we would’ve ended up on the streets with nowhere to go and barely any money.

In Oklahoma, we went through a few houses, including our grandparents house, a small, gray little house, and finally a red brick, three-bedroom one. Over that period of time, we got our first and only dog Sara, who we have to this day and I continue to love, and our mom met a man who now lives with us and has lived with us for many years. At the last house, when I was in 5th grade, was when things began to go downhill. Very, very downhill. I lost people who meant a lot to me, I met people who used and bullied me, and one girl impacted me very hard. I began to feel depressed, I withdrew myself and began to have thoughts of self-harm and even the urge to attempt suicide. I fell into such a deep depression that I felt completely alone, as if no one cared about me and I was worth nothing, like I would never ever be happy. I withdrew to..the internet. There, I met someone who would change my life forever. Lets call them Sunshine. (At the time, we both identified as girls, but I choose to use neutral pronouns because they are genderfluid.)

I do not exaggerate when I say that Sunshine saved my life. When I moved to the Midwest and was still struggling with severe bouts of depression and thoughts of suicide, they were always there to console me. They demanded that I don’t cut myself, that I don’t take my own life, and they said they would never leave me. I said the same for them, on those dark, lonely nights when I had no one to talk to but them, no one else to help fight off our demons but the two of us. They currently take medication for their depression and anxiety, and I am going to therapy. I would not say that I am past this, it is still a thing that haunts my every step, tears at me at night when I am alone. I am just lucky that I got to video call them for the first time, finally see their face, over Christmas break in 2017. I hope that we never grow apart, because if it wasn’t for them I would be dead.

Around the beginning of 2017 was when I began to question my gender (I knew I was not straight when I was in 5th grade, but my gender was never something that was on my mind before that time). I had met a boy who was ftm trans*, who I quickly fell in love with and we began dating. Unfortunately, after breaking up and getting back together, I found that he was controlling and our relationship had grown unstable and toxic. It was unhealthy, so we decided not to talk anymore. That is a story for another time, though.

At first I thought I was just plain ftm trans*, a boy, but it developed and as I learned more I found out that I was ftm trans*masculine, or a femme demiboy. Gender dysphoria had a big impact on me, controlling what I wear and eventually how much I ate even. I developed body issues, some days telling myself not to eat and others telling myself to purge. I would change outfits all the time, staring in the mirror and feeling so wrong. It felt like nobody saw me for who I really was, only the happy girl that they wanted me to be. Now, though I still suffer from gender dysphoria of course, I am out to all my friends and my personal family. They all respect me, and though I still have a long way to go until taking T, I am content. Everyone uses the right pronouns and soon I hope I can get them to use the name ‘Adrian’, but they don’t know about that yet. I am also getting a binder very soon.

I would not say that I am past all my problems, they are still here and very visible. There’s not much of a conclusion to this story because it is nowhere near over yet. It’s just my life so far.

Welp, I hope I didn’t bore you to death or bring you down or anything! If you’re still here and didn’t get bored reading, good job! 😀

I hope that I find a home here, and that I am able to give advice to queer teens and teens who are suffering from mental illness. I don’t know much, being 13, but I hope to learn anyway.

Have a wonderful day/night!

~Adrian(∩ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)⊃━☆ﾟ